Kentucky Museum - Past Exhibits

In partnership with the Kentucky Folklife Program and the Department of Society, Culture, Crime, and Justice Studies, we are proud to present the 2024 Día de los Muertos Community Ofrenda. During museum hours (Wednesday through Saturday, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm CST) community members will be able to visit our interactive community ofrenda on display.An ofrenda (otherwise known as an altar or an offering) is a traditional space in which communities celebrating Día de los Muertos can add photos, art, and items of remembrance for loved ones that have passed on. Last year’s Ofrenda was such a brilliant success, and we are thrilled to continue the tradition this year. 

April 6 - June 22, 2024

For twenty years, we have partnered with Arts for All Kentucky to host spring workshops and an exhibition of artwork collaboratively produced by young artists with disabilities and area artists. Learn more about Side by Side here.

March 2 - April 12, 2024

The Kentucky Museum presents their annual juried art exhibit, which is truly a celebration of this region’s art. Generously sponsored by Abound Credit Union, any Kentucky resident over the age of 18 and living within 65 miles of Bowling Green was eligible to enter a piece of their original artwork created within the last two years. Monetary awards are given in ten categories as well as for Best of Show, the Purchase Award, the World's Greatest Studio Tour Merit Award, and the Artworks Merit Award.

February 21 - March 16, 2024

We are thrilled to serve as host venue for the Kentucky Art Education Association's Elementary & Middle School All-State Art Show 2024. Students across Kentucky submit their works to the show. At the end, a Closing Reception honors their works. The show is a wonderful introduction to art as a profession and encourages artistic talent across the Commonwealth while advocating for and increasing the quality of visual arts education.

July 26, 2023 - March 23, 2024

Official staff photographer for WKU and all satellite campuses, Clinton Lewis has spent fifteen years as a hidden gem of our campus and community. This exhibition highlights Clinton's work in editorial photojournalism, advertising and commercial photography, outdoor adventure, fine art landscape photography, and graphic design.  

January 17 - February 15, 2024

The portion of Americans who make their living by farming has dropped dramatically over the last century, which means that most of us are far removed from farm life - and know little about the challenges that farmers face or the pride and joy that comes with farming. The Farmers Cultural Awareness Project shares experiences of farmers in the 10-country Barren River Area Development District, in their own words, from oral histories recorded in 2021-22.Created in partnership with the Raising Hope Initiative, the WKU Department of Folk Studies & Anthropology, the WKU School of Nursing & Allied Health, and the Area Health Education Center of South Central Kentucky. For more information about the project, click here.

February 2020 - December 9, 2023

Gazing Deeply showcases how WKU’s backyard—the unique landscape of Mammoth Cave—is being studied, interpreted, and inspiring action on environmental change. Coinciding with the UNESCO Conservation of Fragile Karst Resources: A Workshop on Sustainability and Community and Earth Day’s 50^th anniversary in 2020, this exhibition is a collaborative effort between arts and science faculty and students that highlights one of the most well-known and vital natural landscapes in the world. 

August 30 - December 9, 2023

In 2008, the Kentucky Museum and Department of Library Collections and Discovery invited our community to share their family photographs for documentation in our archives. As a primary source, photographs provide direct evidence of events and time periods used by researchers to learn about what was important to people who lived at the time and to discover what their lives were like. Submitted photographs documented life in Bowling Green from the 1890s to 1980s, and provide a look at nearly 100 years in "Our Town." What do you see when you look at these photographs?

September 2023

Continent to Commonwealth features 33 works by 30 Kentuckians who represent the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.The Kentucky Arts Council, in partnership with Asia Institute-Crane House and the Kentucky Chinese American Association, invited Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Kentuckians to share their visual art. Dozens of artists answered the call, with ethnic identities including Korean, Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Indian, Vietnamese, and Karen. A panel of Asian/Asian American cultural specialists selected works to include in this exhibit. 

2021 - 2023

Carrie Taylor was a dressmaker who began her business, the Mrs. A. H. Taylor Company, in 1878. Taylor developed the business early in her adult life and continued running it until her death in 1917.  For nearly 40 years, the Mrs. A.H. Taylor Company was known for quality, lace-embellished dresses. Curated by Dr. Carrie Cox, this exhibition explores Taylor's life and work. Through her success, we can understand shifting gender roles, the transition from custom-made to ready-to-wear fashion, and female entrepreneurship at the turn of the 20th century.View the 360 Tour and Learn about the Collection

2022 to July 2023

Crazy quilts emerged in the United States during the late nineteenth century. Stitchery from London’s Royal School of Art Needlework as well as the display of Japanese arts and crafts at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876 inspired women across America to take up their needles in new and different ways. Significantly, the authors of the household décor literature associated with the resulting Art Needlework movement were not the first to promote crazy quilts.  Rather, as quilt historian Virginia Gunn has noted, these textiles “emerged as a grass roots response to Aesthetic Movement fashions.” By 1884, the fad for crazy quilts was so great that terms such as ‘mania’, ‘maddening’, ‘maniacal’, and ‘insanity’ appeared with regularity in newspaper and magazine articles.The exhibit, Crazy Quilt Mania, examines the above trends through the exhibition of 23 crazy quilts selected from the Kentucky Museum collection. In addition to crazy quilts, this exhibit includes examples of textile and non-textile fancywork as well as numerous fancywork illustrations and advertisements from the period.  

April 6 - June 30, 2023

For twenty years, we have partnered with Arts for All Kentucky to host spring workshops and an exhibition of artwork collaboratively produced by young artists with disabilities and area artists. Learn more about Side by Side here.

In politics, the old adage “having a seat at the table” is often used to refer to those in positions of power, influence and policy making. This poster exhibit highlights a few of the women who have held political office and had “a seat at the table” in decision making for the Commonwealth. A Seat at the Table and Kentucky Women Rising are both exhibits that will be on physical display at the Museum.More Information.

View the virtual exhibit here.

How did women express their support for the new American nation?Featuring textiles from the Kentucky Museum and Kentucky Historical Society, Whitework: Women Stitching Identity explores the significance of early white embellished textiles that have been largely ignored, undervalued, and misinterpreted. Whitework holds a “special place” within the cultural geography of textile making, connecting regional textile making with broader narratives of American women’s lives, political participation, and self-expression during the formative years of the Early Republic. Mounted in partnership with the Kentucky Historical Society, Whitework proves that American women have always been involved in forming our national identity and culture.

More Information

Techniques represented in this exhibit range from overshot, double weave, and tied-beiderwand to latch hook rug making and weaving on a hand loom. Often anonymous, the weavers whose work is represented in it include individuals who wove for domestic use, professionals who earned their livelihoods from weaving, and skilled enthusiasts who strove to keep craft traditions alive in the 20^th century.Although the textiles in Even Coverlets Get the Blues are primarily functional in nature, they illustrate aesthetic decisions regarding design and color choices that historically were and are part of the weaving process. Today’s weavers and fiber artists value the craft as much, if not more, for its artistic possibilities than for its utilitarian purposes.

2018

WKU’s Cultural Enhancement Series and the Kentucky Museum host award winning artist Patrick Dougherty in October 2018 on WKU’s campus in Bowling Green, Ky. Dougherty, his son Sam, along with many volunteers constructed Highbrow, a sculpture made from intertwined tree saplings, on the Museum's front lawn.More Information

This exhibition showcased works by weaving and art appreciation instructor Jacqui Lubbers, who served in the WKU Art Department for over 30 years.

Process Oriented Works showcase various techniques such as engraving and collaging which allow the artist's  finished piece to leave clues to how it was made.  The accumulation of marks or overlapping of colors highlight the process for each piece and the nonobjective and objective styles focus on the detail in the seemingly ordinary.  The thoughtfulness within each piece speaks to the process that was chosen, inviting contemplation about each individuals own everyday process.

Learn about the Traveling Exhibit available from the Kentucky Folklife Program.

A printmaking installation celebrating the natural world, created by students in Marilee Salvator's classes.

Arte Cubano highlights a universally agreed-upon characteristic of the island’s art: an incredible cultural blend of African, European, and Latin/Caribbean influences. Add to these traditional roots the revolution of 1959, and Cuban art occupies a unique aesthetic place in the contemporary art world. The exhibition’s artists include Lidzie Alvisa, José Bedia, Los Carpinteros, Yoan Capote, Enrique Celaya, Roberto Fabelo, Diana Fonseca, Pedro Pablo Oliva, Kcho, Sandra Ramos, Esterio Segura, and more. On loan from Mid-America Arts Alliance and the Center for Cuban Studies (NYC), with support from ExhibitsUSA and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Kentucky Folklife Program and the Kentucky Museum are pleased to offer A Culture Carried: Bosnians in Bowling Green. This exhibit is a partnership with the Kentucky Folklife Program's Bowling Green Bosnia Oral History Project, the Kentucky Museum, and the Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology. The digital companion to our exhibit, A Culture Carried: Bosnians in Bowling Green, is now available to the public at the following web address: kfpbosniaproject.org. You can now view exhibit information and audiovisual content from the exhibit conveniently online. Previously, this content was only made available to visitors to the physical exhibit at the Kentucky Museum, or to anyone who uses the Kentucky Museum mobile app. Keep an eye on the site – more content will be added as the Bowling Green Bosnia Oral History Project grows!

The theme of The Essential Tree spoke to us because we are featuring multiple tree-related exhibits this year, including Salient Features: Trees of Old Forests and Woodland Pastures and Stickwork at WKU. The Essential Tree explores the multifaceted role of trees in both our past and present.The tree has played an important role in the history of the United States. Americans love and revere trees, while at the same time consuming them for a variety of purposes. This exhibit highlights the essentialness of trees, both for their natural beauty as well as their functionality. Exhibit items have been provided by the Kentucky Museum and the Department of Library Special Collections.

This exhibition explored the stories of Kentuckians during the American Civil War.

Kaleidoscope showcases thirty rarely seen or previously unseen quilts. Made in twenty-eight different patterns, they range in age from the 1820s through the 1970s. While many of these quilts illustrate high levels of artistry, others are less accomplished in their execution. Regardless of the skill level involved, they illustrate many of the quiltmaking  techniques and patterns represented in the collection and are part of the rich cultural tradition of quiltmaking in Kentucky that extends back more than 200 years. One of the highlights of the exhibition is the first public display in Bowling Green of the circa 1880 Kentucky Sun Quilt.  The symbol of the Kentucky Quilt Project's landmark exhibit and book, Kentucky Quilts: 1800-1900, the acquisition of this remarkable textile was made possible by the generosity of the Board of the Kentucky Quilt Project as well as monetary contributions from the Board of the Kentucky Heritage Quilt Society, the Ridley Group of Wells Fargo Group, KHQS members, and numerous private citizens.See more examples from the Kentucky Museum's quilt collection in KenCat, our online catalog.

The Kentucky Museum is pleased to host Salient Features: Trees of Old Forests and Woodland Pastures, an exhibit featuring the work of artist Charles Brindley. Brindley's interest in trees began in the mid 1980s when he stated working directly on site, creating large scale drawings. In addition to other subjects, he has produced over ten highly detailed drawings of trees annually for 25 years. During the same period, the artist completed nearly 500 tree paintings and sketches. Brindley has been represented by galleries in numerous cities, including Nashville, Memphis, Taos, Washington, DC and New York City. His work appears in public and corporate collections throughout the United States and in private collections internationally. Five touring exhibitions of Brindley’s works have traveled to museums and art centers in the Southeast and Midwest. Charles Brindley’s drawings and paintings depict a variety of symbol-laden subjects, including giant deciduous trees, panoramic landscapes, prehistoric ruins, rock formations, architecture and still lifes. His images are highly representational but contain multi-layered abstract elements.

Spring 2018 - Spring 2019

An exhibition of thirty-two posters designed by students in Natalie Tyree's ART 331 course, which celebrated the visual and historic character of downtown Bowling Green.

Performance piece in November 2015

Liza Kelly, Associate Professor, WKU Music and her Opera Theatre class;  Kristina Arnold, Associate Professor, WKU Art; Lisa D. Long, Assistant Professor, California State University Fullerton, Dance; Tammy Jeffries, Post-Doctoral Fellow, WKU Communication; and the faculty and staff of the Kentucky Museum produced this immersive theatre experience.

This collaborative mural honoring the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was painted by six local African American artists: Glen Bolling, Alice Gatewood-Waddell, Thelma Green, Granville Mitchell, Vonda Victor and Thomas Withrow.

This unique collection showcases the ordinary means by which Americans from many fields of study have achieved extraordinary things-- the actual "tools" that have shaped the course of this nation's history. Serving to educate and inspire, these items remind us that the actual instruments used by the highest of achievers are not magical or highly unusual, but rather that the attainment of excellence is often achieved only by the imagination and perseverance that personify the American spirit.

The Kentucky Museum collection includes more than 25 examples of art by Joe Downing.  For more information about these works or about the artist, go to KenCat, our online catalog, or contact the Kentucky Museum Registrar/Collections Curator.  The art featured in this exhibit is part of a private collection and was displayed at the Kentucky Museum in 2000.